Italian American Studies

Italian American Studies is a broad and interdisciplinary Academic Minor which focuses
on the origins, developments and reframing of Italian culture and society in relation
to the Americas, with a particular emphasis on the United States. It is designed to
assist students in exploring the ways in which Italian and American cultures have
combined to form a distinctive yet multifaceted social group.

Italian American Studies offers all students at Stony Brook an opportunity to survey
the developments of this dynamic field in general through introductory courses which
satisfy distribution requirements. It also offers the opportunity to concentrate on
several of its aspects by electing to do a Minor, which requires 21 credits. Thus
a student can explore in depth and breadth the complexity of the history, literature,
cinema, a variety of cultural phenomena and events, as well as the politics, iconography
and symbolisms of generations of Italians who settled in North America. The exodus
of Italians towards the Americas has historically represented one of the largest demographic
shifts in the world: 25 million in less than a century. Consequently, against the
many revolutions and evolution of societies in the twentieth century, the Program
addresses issues relating to migration, assimilation, journeying and rebirth, gender
and race, identity creation, economics, popular culture and public service. These
crucial areas of investigation have the added advantage of furnishing a framework
to explore and relate to other Americans who may have had similar experiences.

A Minor in Italian American Studies can thus be fruitfully combined with a Major
in a number of disciplines,
from political science to
history, from
sociology to
psychology, form
urban studies to
media studies, and of course from Italian and European Studies to English and American Studies. The
Minor is particularly important for
Secondary Education teachers, not only owing to the large percentage of Italian Americans actually residing in
Suffolk County and the Tri-State area in general, but also because it offers critical
insights into the complexity of identity formation in pre-college youths, the shifty
grounds of ethnic politics, and a global view on migrations past and present. This
kind of historical and critical background is very useful also to understand better
new immigrants and an ever more diversified student body, irrespective of field of
study.

Formal study of Italian American culture, in the university, is a relatively recent
phenomenon. A major professional organization, The American Italian Historical Association,
founded in 1967 and recently renamed
The Italian American Cultural Association, has been instrumental in validating this important, rich, and empowering field of
learning and research. Through the 1980s and early 1990s academic journals such as
Italian Americana and
VIA Voices in Italian Americana have given it diverse platforms for both, in depth specialized literary analyses
as well as wide-ranging and comparative approaches. Most recently another major journal,
The Italian American Review, has been relaunched to explore issues in folklore, sociology and cultural anthropology.
The number of publications and events relating to Italian American culture now numbers
in the thousands, both in the United States and worldwide.

Requirements

The minor in Italian-American Studies offers the opportunity to acquire an understanding
of the historical and social forces that shape the Italian-Americans in the United
States. Students who wish to complete the program must establish an advisement folder
with the program director who supervises their progress as they fulfill the requirements.The
completion of the Minor in Italian-American Studies requires 21 credits. All courses
offered to fulfill the requirements of the minor must be passed with a grade of C
or higher.

ITL 311 or ITL 312: 3 credits

HUI 236: 3 credits

HUI 237 or HUI 239 or HUI 216: 3 credits

HUI 333, HUI 336, HUI 338, HUI 390: 12 credits

Substitutions may be allowed when required courses are not available. See adviser
of the program.